Hell (A Prison Diary 1)

I cannot hide my delight at the thought, and he leaves me while I make up my new bed. He returns a few minutes later with a battered black radio, from I know not where.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he says and disappears again.

I take a considerable time balancing the radio on the tiny brick window sill with the aerial poking out between the bars before I am able to tune into the familiar voice of Christopher Martin-Jenkins on Test Match Special. He’s telling Blowers that he needs a haircut. This is followed by the more serious news that Australia are now 92 for 2, and both the Waugh brothers look set in their ways. As it’s an off-writing period, I lie down on the bed and listen to Graham Gooch’s groan as two catches are dropped in quick succession. By the time a bell goes for supper, Australia are 207 for 4, and I suspect are on the way to another innings victory.

4.00 pm

Once again I reject the prison food, and wonder how long it will be before I have to give in.

I return to my cell to find my purchases from the canteen list have been left on the end of my bed. Someone has entered my cell and left without my knowing, is strangely my first reaction. I pour a cup of Buxton water into my plastic mug, and remove the lid from a tube of Pringles. I eat and drink very slowly.

7.00 pm

Three hours later another bell rings. All the cell doors are opened by prison officers and the inmates congregate on the ground floor for what is known as ‘Association’. This is the period when you mix with the other prisoners for one hour. As I walk the longest route I can circumnavigate – walking is now a luxury – I discover what activities are on offer. Four

black men wearing gold chains with crosses attached are sitting in one corner playing dominoes. I discover later that all four of them are in for murder. None of them appears particularly violent as they consider their next move. I walk on to see two more inmates playing pool, while others lounge around reading the Sun – by far the most popular paper in the prison if one is to judge on a simple head count. At the far end of the room is a long queue for the two phones. Each waiting caller has a £2 phonecard which they can use at any time during Association. I’m told I will receive one tomorrow. Everything is tomorrow. I wonder if in a Spanish jail everything is the day after tomorrow?

I stop and chat to someone who introduces himself as Paul. He tells me that he’s in for VAT fraud (seven years), and is explaining how he got caught when we are joined by a prison officer. A long conversation follows during which the officer reveals that he also doesn’t believe Barry George killed Jill Dando.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘He’s just too stupid,’ the officer replies. ‘And in any case, Dando was killed with one shot, which convinces me that the murder must have been carried out by a disciplined professional.’ He goes on to tell us that he has been on the same spur as George for the past eighteen months and repeats, ‘I can tell you he’s just not up to it.’

Pat (murder, reduced to manslaughter, four years) joins us, and says he agrees. Pat recalls an incident that took place on ‘prison sports day’ last year, when Barry George – then on remand – was running in the one hundred yards and fell over at thirty. ‘He’s a bit of a pervert,’ Pat adds, ‘and perhaps he ought to be locked up, but he’s no murderer.’

When I leave them to continue my walkabout, I observe that we are penned in at both ends of the room by a floor-to-ceiling steel-mesh sheet. Everyone nods and smiles as I pass, and some prisoners stop me and want to talk about their upcoming trials, while others who are sending out cards need to know how to spell Christine or Suzanne. Most of them are friendly and address me as Lord Jeff, yet another first. I try to look cheerful. When I remember that if my appeal fails the minimum time I will have to serve is two years, I can’t imagine how anyone with a life sentence can possibly cope.

‘It’s just a way of life,’ says Jack, a forty-eight-year-old who has spent the last twenty-two years in and out of different prisons. ‘My problem,’ he adds, ‘is I’m no longer qualified to do anything when I get out.’

The last person who told me that was a Conservative Member of Parliament a few days before the last election. He lost.

Jack invites me to visit his cell on the ground floor. I’m surprised to find three beds in a room not much larger than mine. I thought he was about to comment on how lucky I was to have a single cell, but no, he simply indicates a large drawing attached to the wall.

‘What do you think that is, Jeff?’ he demands.

‘No idea,’ I reply. ‘Does it tell you how many days, months or years you still have to go before you’re released?’

‘No,’ Jack responds. He then points below the washbasin where a small army of ants are congregating. I’m a bit slow and still haven’t put two and two together. ‘Each night,’ Jack goes on to explain, ‘the three of us organize ant races, and that’s the track. A sort of ants’ Ascot,’ he adds with a laugh.

‘But what’s the stake?’ I enquire, aware that no one is allowed to have any money inside a prison.

‘On Saturday night, the one who’s won the most races during the week gets to choose which bed they’ll sleep in for the next seven days.’

I stare at the three beds. On one side of the room, up against the wall, is a single bed while on the other side are bunk beds.

‘Which does the winner choose?’

‘You’re fuckin’ * dumb, Jeff. The top one, of course; that way you’re farthest away from the ants, and can be sure of a night’s sleep.’

‘What do the ants get?’ I ask.

‘If they win, they stay alive until the next race.’

‘And if they lose?’

‘We put them into tomorrow’s soup.’ I think it was a joke.

Another bell sounds and the officers immediately corral us back into our cells and slam the doors shut. They will not be unlocked again until eight tomorrow morning.